BOARD00162

• Board Meeting Date: 7/13/1998
• Description: WSP Section - Colorado River Basin Issues - Aspinall Operations - 1998 Planned Spring Break
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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Colorado Water Conservation Board
Department of Natural Resources
721 Centennial Building
1 31 3 Sherman Street
Denver, Colorado 80203
Phone: [phone]
FAX: [phone]

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Roy Romer
Governor

J.lmes $. Lochhead
Executive Director, DNR

DrtriesC. Lile, RE.
Director, eweB

Peter H. Evans
Acting Director, ewCB

MEMORANDUM

TO:

Colorado Water Conservation Board Members

FROM:

Randy Seaholm ~~
Chief, Interstate Streams Investigation Section

DATE: July 2, 1998

SUBJECT: Agenda Item 26f, July 13-14, 1998 Board Meeting-
Colorado River Basin Issues,
Aspinall Operations - 1998 Planned Spring Peak

Introduction

At the May 11-12, 1998 meeting, the Board was provided with a memorandum
(agenda item 26i) describing: (I) planned operations at the Aspinall Unit during the 1998
runoff period, and (2) concerns with a planned spring peak that involved bypasses of the
Crystal power plant, Attached is a news release and hydro graph which show that the
planned bypass of Crystal did occur between May 19th and June 2nd of this year, The
purpose of this memorandum is to document the conditions under which the bypass was
made, This is important given that Blue Mesa Reservoir will not fill this year,

Discussion

As indicated in the May 5, 1998 memorandum, the peak was generated solely by
bypassing water at Crystal. No storage water was released from Blue Mesa and releases
were significantly less than inflow during the peaking period, At Morrow Point,
reservoir fluctuations were in the normal range and typically above the normal reservoir
operating elevation of7153,73 feet. Morrow Point releases however often exceeded
inflows due to upstream regulation by Blue Mesa Reservoir and power needs at any given
time,

The peak release out of Crystal was 4,000 cfs between May 23rd and May 25th,
This release exceeded the power plant capacity (2,030 cfs) by 1,970 cfs, During the
entire peaking period, approximately 34,000 AF bypassed the Crystal power plant.
Given the May I runoffforecast, Reclamation was expecting the Crystal bypass to be
approximately 89,000 AF during May, June and July, of which 19,000 AF would have
been attributable to the planned spring peak, The reasons for the larger than planned
bypass were: (I) consideration given to the request for stable flows by recreational
interests over the Memorial Day weekend that resulted in a 3-day peak rather than a 2-